Local Music Reviews

Pandas & People

I feel like I review a weird amount of bluegrass and Americana, especially since it kind of has its roots in the Appalachians. Maybe it's just mountain music. I guess, that's really when I listen to it the most; winding through high country valleys and looking down from mountain passes. It just feels like the soundtrack of the hills.

Years back I spent a lot of summer weekends in vans with ten other sweaty unwashed people driving from festival to festival to see bands like this. Like this. But this is better. For starters, I don't have to drive across the state to see them and then, their songs are shorter than 15 minutes— bonus points.

Pandas & People may seem like an unlikely moniker for a good ol' Americana hootenanny but they nail it. Their musical style is a little hard to pin down, so I filed it under that large lacy parasol of Americana. But, whether you listen to country, bluegrass, jam or indie, Pandas & People fits in somewhere.

This FoCo band keeps the audience singing along with the hooks, hopping around to some crazy banjo plucking, and feeling like they're kids again if only for the night. The vocals are spot on and the harmonies absolutely delightful. Lyrics may seem a little light and fluffy, but that's what summer music is all about— putting a smile on your face that drowns your worries. Worries are for winter.

Seriously now, if you feel like dancing like no one is watching under the open sky, don't miss this. It's the perfect soundtrack for it.

Promotional Text

Grease Monkey - Advertorial

Grease Monkey is known throughout Longmont for their excellent service and expertise on virtually any make or model. Whether it be a simple oil change or a transmission, radiator flush or tire rotations, they will follow your vehicle owner's manual. The Grease Monkey name carries with it national recognition, training and well crafted products while each franchise retains it local ownership and feel.

The Longmont location opened its doors in 1987 and has expanded from one location to 17 all across the Front Range, which makes it the largest franchise within the Grease Monkey system. Owner, Rob Morrow, values being an active part of his community and customers respond. He returns their favor by passing it on to others through local and national charities.

One such charity is the K-9s for Warriors program which supplies service dogs to soldiers with traumatic brain injury or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Morrow says he is “very appreciative of the sacrifices these soldiers have gone through. We have been given our freedom in America because of these brave few.” To that end, Morrow has also been known to provide free oil changes to active and non-active veterans on Veterans' Day

Operating a business today is tough, operating a business with heart is tougher, but Grease Monkey in Longmont doesn't shy away from the challenge.

Be Well Bodyworks - Business Spotlight

What makes you different? The question can certainly inspire a lot of thought, and sometimes more than a little anxiety, but not for Kelly McElroy, CMT at Be Well Bodyworks.

“What makes us different is that most places offer 50 minute massage where we offer the full 60. Ten minutes can be a big difference in a massage. We’re also locally owned, not part of a big corporation,” she says.

Being local allows them to make their own operating decisions which means that they can offer patrons extended services like same-day appointment times—even on a Sunday. “We’re open seven days a week, and stay open until 9 p.m. Thursday through Saturday,” Kelly adds. That makes finding time to squeeze in your oft-neglected “me time” that much easier. You can even schedule from your mobile device, but if the idea just strikes you, never fear, they take walk-ins.

Even after 13 years in practice, and a recent relocation, Be Well never stops growing. They continually offer a huge array of therapy options: deep tissue, medical, sports, prenatal, Ashiatsu, hot stone and the list goes on. But beyond that they give customers a place to relax, refresh and shake off the dust of life, one hour at a time. And that’s priceless.

The new office is located at 630 Coffman St., Unit B. and Kelly welcomes you to stop by and say hello, or just schedule your massage right now at bewellbody.com

Book Reviews

The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld

The Enchanted isn't an easy read, but it is a quick one. It both challenges and reinforces at once the reader's ideas about the prison system.

Told from two perspectives, one an unnamed death row inmate and the other a caseworker only known as The Lady, the story revolves around the impending execution of another inmate who challenges The Lady with his own desire for death.

The narrator creates an entire world within his head and the walls of the prison that is populated by little gossiping men with hammers, night birds that dance in the dust of the yard and golden horses that run molten and violent beneath the floor of their confinement. Through the bars of this world he watches. He sees the other inmates, whose real names are never disclosed, approach their impending date with death in different ways. He sees the warden struggle to control his life within and without the walls. He sees The Lady become attached to the prison chaplain, whom he calls The Fallen Priest, often seeing and understanding more of their journey than they do.

Outside of the prison, as The Lady digs deeper and deeper into this particular case, she is confronted by the similarities to her own life. Circumstance is all that really separates her story from that of those she is hired to help.

Despite the darkness of the subject and the darkness within the characters, it manages to be magical and uplifting. The book is beautifully written, both gut-wrenching and…well, enchanting. It's a little like an adult version of a fairy tale. Not the Disney-fied version. The original Grimm's version, full of scary forests, desperation, betrayals and depraved acts of violence. The ones that don't always end happily.

As depressing as it sounds (and I thought so too before I read it) it actually is very powerful and hopeful, making it an excellent alternative to the brain candy we usually call "summer reading."